Brit web firms tweet way out of slump

Tweeting and faffing with Facebook are helping British internet businesses avoid the economic slump, according to a survey by Sage Pay. Brit web stores grew an average 49 per cent in the past 12 months, and three-quarters of them reported using social media to drive sales, according to the poll's findings. Sage Pay, a payment- …

[Anonymous Coward]

Skewed results

A generous pinch of salt is needed here. SagePay's customers are primarily micro-ecommerce, which by their very nature have a fast growth curve. Sure, they have a few larger customers, but the vast majority are very small and very young.

The picture is very different when you take into account the UK ecommerce market as a whole, which has struggled this year nearly as much as the high street has.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Other useful tips for webmasters uncovered by the poll include...

Merchandise that customers want? What wasn't that listed, does it conflict with the Sage's business model?

[Brian Gannon]

Social networking or weak pound driving sales? My money is on the later. Even Facebook cant undo thousands of years of economic tradition.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised SagePay were online long enough to access facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Still...

any profits from blogging will be offset by one of SagePay's Christmas downtime specials, I'm sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Causal link or subjective opinion?

My subjective opinion is that social media has no effect on my own purchasing decisions. Just because a % of successful online businesses use facebook/twitter doesn't mean that the success is due to FB/Twitter activity. I'd be more convinced by google analytics tracking actual sales back to twitter/FB initiated web site visits.

In reality this SagePay press release is intended to attract the attention of web businesses so they can then plug SagePay's services.